


Glassland

by lapoesieestdanslarue



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe- Zombies, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, i can't write anything happy tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapoesieestdanslarue/pseuds/lapoesieestdanslarue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His heaven is with Clarke. His heaven is their tug-of-war relationship, the fast jibes and snarky comments they exchanged like kids trading baseball cards, not caring what the stats meant. His heaven is Clarke’s smile, the way it lights up her whole face, and the way it appears every time they came across an animal, as if it gave her hope for the new world.</p>
<p>His hell is wherever he isn’t with Clarke.</p>
<p>(It's the end of the world and Bellamy is busy finding his sister and falling in love.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glassland

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so this is my secret santa gift to forbellamy!!! I hope you enjoy this as much as I enhoyed writing it, doll :)
> 
> Also if you guys want some music recs I highly recommend these few which I listened to a lot while writing this! I'll link you to them as the fic goes on in the appropriate places :))

 

                              "But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave."

**Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_**

 

                                                                            "The wicked flee when no man pursueth."

**Proverbs 28:1**

 

*******

 

We all die alone. No matter how many friends we have, how many lies we tell or how much money we have.

We all fall down.

Some days it feels like I’ve been silenced. After all, there are no more stories to tell, not many more people to listen to them. Hell, some days it feels like I may as well just throw his message into a bottle and fling it into the ocean, like it’s all hopeless and I’m just shouting into a void.

But then I look at Clarke.

She’ll hear me. She’ll keep my message safe.

~*~

The sun is high in the sky, and beating down and the crown of Bellamy’s head.

It used to never be like this where they used to live. In Washington the days were mostly filled with grey, bleak clouds looming over head, and always with a threat of rain. He loved it, loved the bite the wind brought and watching the first few snowflakes fall. Washington was hot coffee warming his hands in his favourite coffee shop while he flicked through a new book, it was fires in his childhood home and letting Octavia spend the night in his apartment when the heating in her building went bust (which it always did). For Octavia, high summer brought joy, warm sunny days, a few beads of sweat, picnics in the park, cold beers and ice cream with him and their friends and the taste of ripe strawberries. It brought relief from the harsh, rainy days they were so used to. Octavia loved summers in the city- lived for it, even.

She was like a cat, and used to lie outside on the porch swing and bask in the warm glow.

But now? It’s hot all the goddamn time. If he never saw the sun again it would be too soon.

It reminds him of what he used to have, what he used to live for.

Bellamy never much cared for the summer.

~*~

He slings his gun back on his shoulder and pops a cigarette into his mouth. He knows he shouldn’t- he’s only got a few left in his pack and by this stage there are probably little few packets left in this wasteland.

But he does anyway. Because he looked at his watch and he did the math. He knows what day it is.

A year ago today, the world fell at his feet.

So he’ll have his damn cigarette.

~*~

He didn’t pay attention to the news reports when they first started. Reports had been going on for weeks about an MV epidemic in Africa, affecting nearly half of the population, sending the country into a frenzy. MV was a disease caused by radiation from the sun affecting the immune system, and Bellamy had noticed how his satellite signal was messed up- his radio and tv were frequented by static screens and white noise.

But he did what he could. He gave a dollar or two when volunteers for Africa came knocking.

But still, he hadn’t thought much of it. Because it seemed out of his world- like it could touch everyone else, but not him or Octavia or his mother. When the first cases of MV wiped nearly the entirety of the population of Nigeria in Africa, Bellamy remembers it vaguely. He remembers reading the news reports and thinking, God, how horrible. He remembers his stomach twisting as he read about what happened- nerves mutated as a result of reacting with the amount of radiation from the sun and they started to grow all over the body, ruining organs and messing with the chemicals in the brain.

He remembers feeling sick as he read about how that same virus spreads around the villages- Remembers feeling sick as he read how MV drove them to cannibalism, and that was how it was spread, through bites.

MV had always been here, ever since the Global Warming crisis of 2034, when mother nature wreaked havoc on the world. After the events that had happened as a result of that, world leaders vowed to never let it happen again. And now, in 2101, there hadn’t been more than five reported cases of MV in one area. Hell, Bellamy even remembers pictures of his grandfather’s old truck, one that still used gas for consumption.

But it wouldn’t happen to him, wouldn’t happen to his family or his friends, oh no. Of course not.

What a stupid fucking idiot.

He was so _blind_ to the world, to its injustices.

~*~

[(X)](https://youtu.be/AGGcf2CZjyI)

The following few weeks after the first case were quiet, normal, even.

Bellamy went on with his life, others did the same. Every one of them, so blissfully unaware that there was a time bomb right above their heads, ticking, ticking, ticking…

One of his co-workers got infected first. He called in sick after coming back from a work trip Egypt, and that was fine. Malaria or something, everyone assumed. Then his landlady came home to find a bloodthirsty monster in lieu of her tenant.

It hadn’t spread though, that’s what they said. SWAT had shot him before he bit anyone. That’s what they said. But Bellamy looks at this new world around him, and thinks _‘Some bastard lied_ ’.

And then one day, the world, as if by its own accord the world shifted, and that time bomb reached its final countdown.

With every passing day, people got more and more sick. Suicide ratings spiked, hospices were set up left right and centre, and heavily armed policemen patrolled the streets. Suddenly he had to wear a medical mask, and carried a weapon with him everywhere just in case. He was constantly bombarded with appeals to fund the search for a cure.

Bellamy remembers walking in to work one day, usually teeming with people, to see a handful of his co-workers and his boss packing up their desks.

“What’s happening?” He asked. “What are you doing?”

Stan, the man who worked in the cubicle opposite him frowned. “Have you been living under a rock, Blake? The world’s ending as we speak. I’m not going sit here and wait to die.”

“So what are you doing, just giving up?”

There was an uneasy silence, before Maura, his boss, shrugged. “Well, the kids always wanted to go to Disneyland.”

Stan shot him a sympathetic look. “Go home, Blake. Stay there. Be with your family.”

Bellamy swallowed, grabbed his things, and left.

~*~

He watched from his couch as the world devolved into madness.

In only a few short days, America was declared to be in a state of an epidemic, and the rest of the world would soon follow.

“O,” He said into his phone as he watched a man shoot a MV carrier on tv. “I’ll pick you up at twelve. Pack the essentials. I’m not going to sit here and let you die. We’ll get mom and we’ll go to Virginia, to that old lake house we used to rent in summer. It’s completely remote, we should be safe there for a while.”

“Bell,” She said, her voice cracking slightly. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Her neighborhood's in lock down right now, and the last time I spoke to her, she

said she wasn’t feeling too well.”

Bellamy’s throat tightened. “She’s fine. She would have called. She’s fine.”

~*~

He remembers listening to the news one night, hands clasped in front of his mouth from tension, holding on to every word the reporter said.

“Scientist have called this an epidemic, claiming that the Mortuus Viventes virus has mutated into a more powerful body, and is, at present, beyond their reach of knowledge-”

And then a sickening thought dawned on him, born from high school biology and a Latin module he took in college.

Mortuus Viventes.

Latin for Living Dead.

~*~

It was horrible, driving down his mother’s estate. If had visited even three weeks earlier, there would have been life everywhere, children playing on the sidewalk dogs barking happily. Now it was completely barren. Houses were deserted and locked up, and there were only one or two cars that he could see. It just seemed too still. Octavia sat beside him, wringing her hands together.

“Bell, we don’t owe her anything-“

“I owe her this, Octavia. If nothing else, she deserves a chance at life.”

He pulled up to her house. The white of the house seemed to have turned to grey, the wood looked as if it was rotting, the blinds were drawn and the shutters were closed. Beside him, Octavia tensed. “She would have called-“

“We don’t know that.” He took a breath, and opened his door. Before his feet hit the ground, Octavia’s hand darted out to grab his wrist.

“Bell,” she said, quietly. “Don’t forget the gun collection in the basement.”

 

~*~

He’s not a bad person. He didn’t _want_ to do it. He had to. She asked him to.

It’s not his fault.

He’s not a bad person.

~*~

They had visited the lake house once or twice as children, but the memories had always stayed in their minds. They summer's they’d spent there had been glorious, long days, filled with games and cold lemonade. Octavia and him had gone with their mother, when Bellamy was seven and eight years old, and Octavia five and six. It marked a wonderful time in their life- that’s how Bellamy compartmentalized his life. The years before his mother’s mental health spiralled out of control, and the years after. The summers spent in the lake house, and the summers not.

The first time they saw an MV was en route to the lake house. They had been driving for about two days at the time, the old, banged-up truck filled with the supplies they had found along the way in abandoned gas stations.

“Bell,” Octavia’s voice tore him from his thoughts, and he turned to face her.

“Look-” She pointed at tired looking building not far away. “-I bet it’s some kind of store.”

Bellamy glanced warily behind him at the few boxes of crackers, saltines and tinned fruit they already had.

“I don’t know, O,” He said. “We’ve already got enough to last us-”

“For a month at best,” She cut in. “Bell, c’mon. By the time we come back here- if we ever do- most of the stuff left in there will be gone. Besides, we’re nearly at the lake house anyway, and hopefully we’ll be staying there as long as we can.”

Bellamy mulled it over, as they approached the building. A large sign read ‘Waltons family grocers’ in chipped, peeling red paint.

“Fine,” He sighed. He made a sharp turn into the parking lot and undid his seat belt. “Get into the driver's seat, be ready to go. I’ll scope the place first, and if I think it’s safe enough and that there’s anything worth getting there, I’ll call you in.” He reached back into the back seats and picked up a rifle from the leather.

He opens the door and steps out, and just before he closes it behind him, he hesitates.

“May we meet again,” He says.

Octavia doesn’t scoff like he thought she might, instead she rolls her eyes but he can see the fondness in the creases. “May we meet again. Now go, Bell.”

And he does. He shuts the door behind him, and walks into the store.

**  
**

It’s dark and smells damp. Industrial sized fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling, buzzing and blinking on every few seconds. The place has mostly been ransacked, there’s a couple of things it might hold that could be useful, but nothing amazing.

He still held his rifle at the ready, finger prepared at the trigger.

He made his way through more aisles, picking up a bottle of water here or there and a few cans of fruit.

The first time he heard it, he thought he was imagining it- His brain making it up, scaring him.

It was like a creak.

The first time he heard it, it was quick and quiet. he had spun around, seen nothing, and continued on his way.

Then he heard it again. Longer, louder.

And an inhuman grunt. A moan, in fact. Full of pain, as if it almost pained the… thing to cause the creak. Bellamy went very still, and his breathing slowed. Immediately his mind raced, filling his head with horrible, nightmarish things- things that had previously been confined his dreams, but then he had to remind himself that these things had very much come to life.

His fingers brushed the flashlight in his pocket, and he fished it out. Whipping around, he clicked it on, and-

Came face to face with a harrowing sight.

The MV victims he had seen on the television had looked like nothing more than something from a horror film.

But this?

This was a woman. Rotting skin stretching tightly across her skeleton, and in some  places there was no skin at all- Her entire left rib cage was completely exposed, her muddy bone contrasting the sickly, flaking green of her skin. Dried blood was caked around her mouth, her teeth stained red, lips nearly completely rotted away.

She looked like a monster. But she was very much a woman.

Her eyes were wide- Her whites milky, but her iris’ unaffected, strikingly blue. And pleading.

She staggered toward him, spine twisted and mouth contorting in pain as she moaned- not a movie moan, there was nothing lifeless to this, there was pain, so much pain- her eyes remained locked with his, wide, scared.

She got two jagged steps before he pulled the trigger.

~*~

He doesn’t remember much about what happened after. He remembers taking one single breath, in, and then-

Being in the car with Octavia, gun laying on his lap, focusing on the road ahead and clenching the wheel so that his hands would stop shaking.

He thinks she might have been trying to talk to him, but he hadn’t been listening.

He had been looking at the sky beyond him, and hating how much it resembled the woman’s blue eyes.

~*~

After another two days with near non-stop travelling, they make it to the lake house. It’s more weathered than his memories recollect, older, he supposes, but it’s small, it has a lot of windows-- A good place to stake out for the time being, he supposes.

Octavia lets out a huff as she drops the final box on the floor, and nudges it further inside with her foot.

“Well,” She says after a moment. “We’re here.”

“We’re here,” Bellamy confirms. Octavia looks somewhat forlorn, not happy with Bellamy’s plan of action.

“Hey,” He says softly as he strides over and puts a comforting arm around her shoulder, holding her close as she stares out the small window. “We’ll be okay. I promise, O. We can do this.”

“Yeah,” She said. And then again, stronger this time. “Yeah.”

“Why don’t we make beans and toast like mom used to for dinner, huh?”

That gets a smile out of her. “Only if you make it.”

~*~

If the watch on his wrist- that stops more than it starts and it’s glass is yellowed with age- is correct, then the last time he saw Octavia was seven months ago to the day.

He takes a drag of his cigarette.

~*~

[(X)](https://youtu.be/nDzUV5f2_-4)

“I swear to god Bellamy why don’t we just _move_ -”

“Dammit, O, how many times do you have to do this?”

“Enough to make you realize that you’re being _insane_! This isn’t a fairy tale, Bell. You can’t just lock me away in a tower and assume we’re safe from harm.” She says it with venom, as if Bellamy is somehow chaining her to an unfair fate, when all he’s doing is saving her.

“I’m trying to _protect_ you!” He had snapped. “ It’s better than being surrounded with MV victims, isn’t it?”

Octavia looked at him with genuine bewilderment. “How can you be so _blind_? Is this the kind of life you want to live? Just sat here in a cabin, rotting away, slowly, with every bit of our sanity with it. What kind of life is that? At least with MV it would be over soon,” She said bitterly.

“Don’t say that, O.”

“Why not? It’s true isn’t it?” She spat. “Hiding isn’t living, Bellamy.”

“Why don’t I just go lock you in the fucking _wardrobe_ , then?” He roared, and then stopped.

 

Deflated.

Because angry tears were filling Octavia’s eyes and he’s a terrible human being.

She grabbed a gun and yanks on her jacket angrily, and he lets her go.

“I hope I never have to see your face again,” She had whispered, hurt and angry and venomously. “You are _dead_ to me, Bellamy Blake.

“May we meet again,” He whispered, as he stared at his hands. But she had already gone, her figure getting lost between the trees in the steep incline of the mountains within a few seconds.

And Bellamy, sat there, useless.

~*~

Their mother had schizophrenia.

It was manageable if she took her medication, but that meant actually taking her medication and that didn’t happen as often as it should have.

It was after Octavia was born that it started to deteriorate- And when O was two it got out of hand. She was convinced that people were searching for Octavia, and would kill her if they found her. She’d lock her in the downstairs basement, and hide the key, so Bellamy would lay awake at night, listening to the sounds of Octavia weeping for help, utterly useless.

This went on for a few months, until eventually a neighbor rang social services, having realized that Octavia’s late night crying fits weren’t those of a restless toddler. Bellamy’s mother went into a psych ward, they went into foster care.

About three years after, Bellamy’s mother finally pieced herself together, and they were allowed to see her on weekends. But the relationship between them was never fixed- fractures remained and it was frayed at the seams.

Octavia had always blamed herself for how things played out. To her, their mother had hated her, wanted to be rid of her. Octavia was born the victim of her mother’s broken mind, and that was a stain that had always remained.

Octavia thought she had been born from hate.

But she was wrong. The truth was so much greater- so much scarier- Bellamy had never told her. Because it would ruin her.

He would know. After all, it ruined him.

~*~

The hours on the dust-covered clock on the wall tick by, and Bellamy had waited in tense anticipation for Octavia’s return.

Day slowly dissolved away, the gloaming ate and ate at the light and shadowed the trees, until darkness covered the land like a blanket.

Bellamy stared out the window, into the pitch black night, and could only let the sobs wrack his body, chest heaving with the burden of his mistake- his mistakes- and his throat tightened, suffocated him with words unsaid, _I love you’s_ , and _I’m sorry’s_. The knowledge that his sister was out there, alone with god knows how many MV’s closing in on her.

After the worst of his anxiety-ridden thoughts had run through his head, he began to settle slightly, to think.

Octavia’s smart. She knows how to use a gun and that the trek is too dangerous to make in the dark without a flashlight, so she was probably hiding out high in a tree somewhere. He would find her tomorrow, he vowed.

That was why she hadn’t come back yet. Because she hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten.

Not even Bellamy can make himself believe it.

**  
**

~*~

_‘Tavia-_

__

_If you’re reading this then you’ve come home, thank god. It also means that I’m still out in the woods looking for you. Don’t worry- if by the second day I still haven’t found you, I’ll come home and check to see if you’re here._

~~_If not, well. I’m royally fucked then, aren’t I?_ ~~

_I’m so sorry about what I said, Octavia. It was so wrong of me, and I promise that if I come back I’ll make it up to you._

_Just sit tight. When I come back, we’ll make a plan, I promise. You were right. I should stop hiding from the world, from all that it brings._

_But if you’ve been here for three days and I’m still not back, then I’m dead. Pack a bag, bring all the supplies you can (but not too much- only the essentials), get in the car and drive. There’s a map in the glove compartment. I’ve marked a route in red- It’s to Virginia. Supposedly, if my radio is correct, there’s a military camp there where you’ll be safe. It’s worth a shot, anyway._

_And if you see me, and I'm an MV, I don’t care when, where or how, kill me._

__

_-Bell_

__

~*~

Bellamy wakes early the next day. He packs a haversack with some fruit, nuts and other small bits of food that should keep him going for two days, as well as his flashlight, some rope and a first aid kit. And ammo. Lots of ammo.

He puts the bag on his back and grabs the rifle of the table, and sets out into the woods, in search for Octavia.

He has a rough idea of where he’s going. He’ll walk in almost straight through about a third of the woods, and then on the way back he can deviate from the route.

 

It’s a long day.

By the end of the third hour, his head is thudding from the measly amount of water he’s allowed himself and his back is killing him. Luckily, he hasn’t heard any or seen any MV’s, but at the same time it niggles at the back of his mind- The woods are almost too still. But nevertheless, he keeps going. Despite his aches and pains, he puts one foot in front of the other and ploughs through the woods, letting the pain serve as a reminder- of what he has to gain, and what he has to lose.

At the beginning of his fifth hour, he allows himself a break.

He manages to makes his way up a tree, eating a protein bar while staring into the trees, watching, waiting.

Then, he hears something that catches him. It’s low- could even be a gust of wind- but it’s there, just about. It’s a scream.

It was there then it wasn’t, a high pitched yell suddenly cut off.

And it sounds like Octavia.

Slowly, very slowly, he grabs his gun, and lowers himself onto the ground. He takes one step. Then another. And then another again, all the while straining his ears until-

He hears them.

Footsteps. Lots of them. Light, yes, but still very much there. And the hum of a car engine. He darts behind a tree, gun pressed to his chest, calming his breathing down despite his heart hammering against his chest.

He pokes his head out, and sees them in the distance.

There’s a huge hoard of them. They walk in perfect formation, like soldiers, dressed from head to toe in armour, black and green easily blending in with the forest. They carry guns like Bellamy’s- much more lethal, he imagines- and some are on horses, and there’s one car taking up the rear.

But then he sees her.

At the back of the line, coming down a steep incline, and handcuffed to the back of the car. Octavia. Her face is grimey and her clothes torn, and he feels rage bubble up in his gut. And regret. And sadness.

The hoard is starting to inch closer, and he takes a step forward. He figures if he waits until Octavia passes him he might just be able to-

He doesn’t get to finish that thought, because the next moment there’s a blinding pain blossoming on the back of his head and darkness is swallowing him whole.

[(X)](https://youtu.be/fLuWMOF6vOU)  


~*~

When he comes to, he’s standing in the basement of his childhood home, staring at the gun collection.

Oh no. _No no no no no_.

He knows what’s going to happen, knows what he’s going to do. He’s going to take the rifle, and put the handguns in his bag.

He does.

He’s going to walk up the few steps the have up to the door, turn around for a final look (unease settling in his stomach as he does, remembering all those sobs he heard from Octavia), and turns the light off.

He does.

He’ll shut the door behind him, walk down the corridor, not looking at the pictures that adorn the walls because he’s about to do something horrible and that will make it all the more harder, and then he’s going to walk up the stairs.

When he does, he’s going to go to the second door on the right, and he’s going to see his mother.

She’s going to be on the bed, skin broken out in angry rashes and boils, emancipated, as if she hasn’t eaten for weeks, her ribs sticking out from under her nightgown. She will turn her head towards him, wheezy breaths racking her body.

“Kill me,” She’ll choke out. “Kill me.”

He’s going to whisper something. He’s going to whisper it, but she’s going to hear him, and when she does, he’ll see a huge sorrow fill her eyes.

“I loved you,” He’ll say. “I’m sorry it was never enough.”

Then he’s going to pull the trigger and shoot her in the head, killing her.

He does.

**  
**  
  
  


_No no no no_

**  
**

....Hey…. _Hey._..!”

A stinging feeling across his cheek, and he jolts awake. Bolting up, he coughs and splutters, his head feeling like someone stuffed it with cotton.

“Oh good, you are alive. Had me worried for a second.”

He turns to the voice, and winces as he does so- his head is killing him.

“Yeah I wouldn’t do that,” The voice- a female- explains. “Your stitches might come out. C’mon, lie back down, big guy.”

“You…” He slurs groggily, and the words feel heavy in his mouth. “You hit me.”

“I did,” She confirms, as she lowers him back down. “With a rock.”

“That wasn’t fucking nice,” He says, but it comes out all funny. However, she laughs anyway.

“Well, I’m not very nice, so. I guess you’ll have to deal with it.”

His head hits something soft- a pillow- and he can feel his eyes droop like lead. Just before the blackness takes him again, he catches a glimpse of the woman. She has porcelain skin and long, blonde hair, almost the complete opposite to Bellamy’s everything.

She’s the last thing he sees before he’s captured by the unconscious again.

~*~

Her name is Clarke, she’s twenty five, she’s a doctor, and she nearly cracked Bellamy’s skull open. When he wakes again, for real this time, his in a damp, dingy cave, with a blanket beneath him and a pillow for his head.

“First impressions are always a bitch,” She says nonchalantly as she fiddles with the stitches at the back of his head. “I’m Clarke, by the way.”

“Bellamy,” He says.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘pleasure’,” He snipes.

She snorts. “Wiseass.”

She removes her hands from his head, and sits down in front of him.

“Listen,” He says. “Do you want to tell me what your thinking was behind nearly smashing skull in?”

Nodding, Clarke pops a berry into her mouth. “Sure. Those guys you saw? They’re from G.R.O.U.N.D.  Most lethal bastards out here- worse than MV’s. They used to be a top-secret military platoon, and after the outbreak they were tasked with hunting down all the humans, and killing all the MV’s.”

Bellamy feels sick, his stomach flipping at the thought of Octavia being anywhere near them.

“If they had caught wind of you, they’d’ve killed you without a second thought. They’re firm believers in ‘shoot first then think’. I mean, they can be tactful when they want, but out here? No rules. They world has already crumbled, what’s another body? One less potential MV for them.”

There’s a sour taste in Bellamy’s mouth- probably the bile he’s trying to hold back. “But my sister,” His voice breaks. “My sister. They had my sister. They didn’t kill her.”

Clarke’s mouth twists into something between a scowl and a grimace. “The grounders have an… _uneasy_ alliance with another military organisation, ARK. And ARK is all about preservation- that’s where they differ. But he grounders are at least smart enough to realise that they still need help, so they have a kind of a pact.” She clears her throat, and wrings her hands. “They’re probably going to try to use her as some kind of bargaining chip.”

Bellamy’s heart skips a beat. “Where are they going?”

Clarke shrugs and gives him an apologetic look. “That, I can’t tell you. ARK has different bases around the place, and the last place they were stationed was temporary. They’re trying to make there way to the main camp. But I don’t know where that is. And when that is.”

“How do you know all this?” He asks, his head spinning from all the information that’s been thrown in it.

Now it’s her that looks uneasy. “Because I used to live there. In ARK. And I was the one who negotiated with The Grounders.”

Bellamy doesn’t ask her why she’s here, now, and not back at whatever safe military camp. They all have burdens to bare, he supposes.

“And now you have no clue where they’re headed?”

“To say the least,” she confirms. “But, I know where the old camp is. They’ve most likely left clues or coordinates there.”

Bellamy frowns. “Could you get me in?”

“I still have my keycard.” She narrows her eyes. “But why would I?”

He sighs, and rubs a hand over his face. “You know how I can save my sister. I have a cabin by the lake. I’ve got water, food, guns. Ammo, too.”

“You want to ally?”

“I didn’t say that,” He says hotly. “Look, you mark out the route, I’ll give you ammo and food and whatever you want and we can go our separate ways.”

She shakes her head. “The fence will still be electrified- You can’t get in safely unless you have a keycard. Which I do. If this is going work, we’re going to have to stick it out together.”

He throws his hands up in surrender. “Fine. Together. Until the camp.”

“Until the camp,” She agrees.

“Where are we?” Bellamy asks.

Clarke thinks for a second. “About five hours from the lake you talk about, give or take.”

Bellamy nods, then winces as a jolt of pain rattles through his skull. “We can make our way there tomorrow,” Clarke says. “You have to rest now.” With that, she pushes him gently onto his back, and he lets the darkness take over again.

But Clarke’s beside him, and he’s not afraid.

~*~

The next morning, they wake early. After Clarke cleans his wound again and check the stitches, they begin their journey, eating as they go.

They don’t say much, save for the bickering about general direction.

 

_“It’s quicker if we go on a straight path, princess.”_

__

_“Don’t call me that,” She snaps back. “And I’m telling you, it’s safer if we do a loop.”_

__

_“We’re living in a world with cannibalistic and infectious people like something straight out of a fucking zombie movie and lethal soldiers. ‘Safe’ isn’t much of an option here.”_

That being said, Clarke isn’t the worst person he could be stuck with. She was smart, she could gave as good as she got when it came to half-hearted insults and quick jibes, and she was brave. Fearless, and she did it all without getting her hands stained or her heart heavy.

When they were walking, an MV stumbled out of the trees, body contorted. Bellamy stood there, frozen with fear, his mother and the woman flashing through his head. Before the MV could even let out so much as a pain-filled moan, Clarke had shot it point blank in the head, and it crumpled to the ground.

“Brave, princess,” He told her. She answered him with a scowl. But they both knew what it meant.

_Thank you.                  No bother._

[(X)](https://youtu.be/M_5_4dfvjn0)  
  
**  
**  
  


When they eventually reach the cabin, the sun is high in the sky and it’s about mid-afternoon.

“How’d you find this place?” She asks as he turns the key in the lock.

“Used to come here as a kid with my mom and my sister.”

“Oh.” Clarke doesn’t ask about his mother. He thanks her in his head for it.

The door eventually opens, after some force from Bellamy. It’s old, and the hinges are starting to rust. It’s the same as it always was, but a light layer of dust covers every surface. There’s a lot of dust now, too. There wasn’t so much before. Then again, the world wasn’t slowly devolving into a radioactive wasteland before.

“The guns are in the back room,” He explains as he drops his bag down. “And there’s food and water bottles in the cupboard, if you want to start packing.”

“Okay,” She says, already shouldering her bag and going to open the cupboard.

He walks into what used to be his bedroom, and opens the wardrobe, where he’s greeted by the site of each of his guns laid out on the shelves, and his rifle on the door, where he’d made a slot for out of nails.

He takes them down individually, testing them, seeing how many bullets each of the has. He has about four in total, that makes two for himself and Clarke, plus the ones they already have. He kneels down, sliding out the shoe box at the bottom. Opening it, he finds bullets upon bullets upon bullets. They should be able to spread them evenly between the two of them.

When he comes back out, Clarke is staring at a picture on the mantlepiece. It’s old hell, it was taken before he was born. But the quality is good, for what it was. It shows his mother on swing on a hot summer's day, smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world. It was just after she had come t o the states, and at that time, she hadn’t. “Is this mother?” She asks softly, fingers tracing over his mother’s face.

He storms over, rage clouding his vision. “That’s none of your damn business,” He snaps, snatching it off her.

She remains unfazed, looking at it in his hand. “She’s beautiful.” She looks at him, face thoughtful. “You look like her.”

“Shut up,” He snipes. “Are you ready to go?”

Clarke stares at him, and he hates what he sees in her eyes- sadness, sorrow, pity. “Yeah,” She says after a second, schooling her features until her face reveals nothing. “Good to go.”

~*~

He doesn’t say much, after that, and neither does she. All through their trek back into the woods, and during the meal they have that night perched up in the branches of trees which consists of beef jerky and saltines, he was lost in thoughts of his mother.

**  
**  


And Clarke? Clarke was lost in thoughts of him. She looked at him, and wonders, ' _How do you love a broken boy?'_

The answer will come to her soon enough.

~*~

His mother’s name was Amihan, she was Filipino, and he had barely spoken a word of English to her, because he loved the way Tagalog sounded, loved the way it sounded like velvet from her mouth.

She had jet black hair, identical in colour to Bellamy’s, except hers was completely straight, and it almost added warmth to her deep, tan skin. Her face was dusted in freckles- also like Bellamy’s- and in her later years she had lines in her forehead and crow's feet in the cracks in her eyes, but she had alway carried the creases around the outside of her mouth. _‘Happy lines,_ ’ she had once told him. _‘Because I smile so much- Because I am so happy, happy, happy when I’m with you!_

She used to smile a lot.

But when she came out of the hospital, she never smiled as much, didn’t laugh like she used to.

He would have loved to make her laugh more.

His mother’s name was Amihan, she loved him, and he killed her.

~*~

“The old camp is about 50 miles from here,” Clarke explains, marking out the point on the map she had found with a pen. “So all we need to do is get to that mountain.” She points it out, it’s far away, but Bellamy can make out the faintest glint of metal. “Then we’re home.”

“Well,” He says, hiking his bag higher up his back. “To home.”

~*~

**  
**  


“Tell me about your sister,” She asks over dinner one day.

Bellamy stops chewing on his dry and though beef jerky, and looks up at Clarke. Who, actually, looks genuinely interested. “Well,” He clears his throat. “Her name’s Octavia. Her hair is completely straight compared to mine- She really does like our mother. She’s funny, snarky, I suppose would be a better word. She’s a total ball buster, real stubborn.”

Clarke laughs, and he lets himself grin. “Wonder where she got that from?” She teases.

He smiles thoughtfully. “Honestly, it’s one of my favourite things about her. She knows her own worth, she doesn’t settle for less. She’s very independent- sometimes I wish she wasn’t so much, but,” He shrugs. “It’s, uh. Kinda in her nature, I suppose. I mean god, I practically raised O by myself. Our mother, she- Well, her mind wasn’t…” He struggles for the words until eventually he just blurts them out. “She had schizophrenia. She used to lock Octavia downstairs in the basement because she thought people were trying to kill her. And then we got put into care… We could only see her on Saturdays, maybe Sundays. Then when I was fifteen, she tried to kill herself.”

Clarke is silent throughout all of this, and it makes it easier. Just to have someone to listen. To know it isn’t just going out into a void.

“She was a good person. She was just a victim to her own mind, I guess. But she was beautiful. Octavia really takes after her. And it’s not that I mind, you know, having to take care of Octavia for all those years- I love her, I’d do anything to protect her. But sometimes I think she didn’t see it like that. That she thought I was just doing it because I had to, so it was just easier to do it my way or no way. But that wasn’t it… That wasn’t it, I just, I just…”

“I know,” She says gently. “I get it.”

“I still love her. I do. I just… Can’t help but feel bitter about it sometimes.”

He feels like a horrible person admitting it, but then Clarke is taking his hand in hers. “I know. It never should have been your burden to bare.”

~*~

They find a somewhat perfect routine together. They go to bed when the moon rises high over trees, and wake the next morning. They eat as they walk, and if Bellamy’s math is right, they cover about ten miles a day, meaning they should reach the old camp by the end of the week. They stop for lunch when it gets too high, and stop for dinner at dusk. They don’t eat much, about five crackers between them for lunch, beef jerky with crackers for dinner, and a can of fruit for breakfast to share. They fill up their water whenever they can, once Clarke has made sure it’s clean. Each night, they climb a tree and strap themselves in with rope, and fall into an uneasy and restless sleep.

They know the bliss can’t last.

Clarke hands him the tin of apricots to open on the final day. “We’ll have to start hunting for food soon, our supply isn’t going to last. I mean you’ll have to start hunting,” She amends quickly, remembering that today is their final day together.

“Not gonna lie, princess, it’s gonna be weird without you,” He admits. “Might even miss you.”

She doesn’t bother to correct the nickname this time. “As much as it pains me to say this, the feeling is mutual, Blake.” She looks up at him. “You’re not too bad, you know that?”

“Gee, thanks.

“Welcome.”

 

They round a corner, and see a huge wire mesh fence beyond them, and behind it a huge big facility, made out of metal as well, sticking out like a sore thumb against the red soil beneath it.

“This is it,” Clarke breathes. “Home.” She looks at him, and he can’t quite read her features.

They approach slower than before, neither wanted to admit that they were trying to savour their last few moments together. As they come up to the fence, Clarke roots through her bag until she comes up with a small card of plastic. She holds it up before a scanner, and there’s a loud beep, followed by a metallic grinding from the fence as it opens for them.

They step inside, and Bellamy instinctively readjusts his gun on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Clarke says. “No MV could have gotten in here.”

_‘No MV could have gotten out either,’_ He thinks, but keeps it to himself.

They walk towards the doors of the building, the windows grubby from the cloudy dust, and Clarke’s hand was left covered in the red particles when she push it open.

“My mother would have left the plans in her office,” Clarke says as she walks down the halls with easy muscle memory, though he could see the ghost that filled her eyes. “It’s just up the first flight of stairs to the left.”

Bellamy nods silently, a step behind her. He hears something- a door closing, perhaps, and freezes.

“It’s okay, Bellamy,” Clarke reassures him. “It’s just the breeze from outside. Really, we’re fine.”

“No harm in taking precautions,” He huffs.

The two of them make their way to her mother’s office without anymore interruptions. Clarke opens the door, and stops.

Bellamy stops too.

He didn’t know Clarke’s mother, but he’s pretty sure that this is not what her room is meant to look like. And judging from Clarke’s reaction, he’s right.

“Oh god,” She whispers.

The rooms is completely trashed. Books and papers are strewn everywhere, maps thrown around the place along with half finished plans. And then, on the blackboard behind a desk, etched in with chalk-

_Clarke-_

__

_50 degrees, 8’, NW, Ton DC_

__

_GO_

__

_-Mom_

No sooner have they read it, then Bellamy hears something- heavy, pained breathing, he tenses, he knows-

A man is writhing in pain on the floor, most of legs stumps, bloody and jagged- bitten. He, too, has been ravaged by MV, his rotting skin is pale and sunken. He reaches a bony hand for Bellamy’s leg, fingertips brushing Bellamy’s pants-

And it flops back down again, because Bellamy’s shot it in the head.

He grabs Clarke by the hand, and drags her out the door. “C’mon,” He grunts. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

~*~

“I don’t understand it,” Clarke says for the hundredth time. But it’s not like Bellamy can blame her. “I just… How did it happen?”

Bellamy shrugs and presses another cracker into her hand. “I can’t tell you, princess. They must have had some kind of internal breakout.”

She shakes her head. “But the security was so good…”

“Mother Nature doesn’t play be our rules.” He picks up the map from the ground and hands it to her, in an attempt to take her mind off of the subject. “But hey, I found out where your mom was talking about. It’s a place called Mount Weather in Washington. I’ve climbed the actual mountain once or twice.”

“So you can get us there?”

“I can try,” He promises.

“Washington,” She quirks an eyebrow. “That’s a long way away.”

 

“Looks like you're stuck with me yet, princess.”

**  
**

~*~

“Tell me about the ARK,” He asks her one night, as she did for him, when they first met.

“It’s… great,” She says, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “I mean, it sucks, being stuck in one little place all the time, and always moving, but the people… The people are what make it, you know? I mean, I have this friend, Raven, she’s a mechanical engineer. She does all kinds of crazy shit, she builds these amazing things- like you know those old television? The big clunky things?”

He nods- he thinks he saw a picture of one once. “We had one of those in one of our first camps,” She explains. “And we were all feeling pretty down, cabin fever, and whatnot, but Raven gets to work, and I don’t know how she did it, but she got us the radio on it.” Clarke smiles, and it’s the first time Bellamy’s seen her so genuinely happy. “That was a good day. And then there’s Jasper and Monty. They blow stuff up. All the time. And Murphy, he can be a dick but he tells a good joke. And I have my easel and paints… It’s not perfect, but,” She shrugs, the smile still on her face and a far away look in her eye. “It’s home.”

__

_Then why did you leave?_ Dangles from his mouth, but he doesn’t ask her, not yet. Because she looks happy, and he wants her to be happy.

~*~

“Do you believe in heaven?” She asks absently one night. “I mean, I’m one of the least religious people out there, but still. I’d like to think that everyone has a different place they go to when they die. What’s yours?”

He thinks, for a second. “I don’t know. I don’t have one, I guess,” He shrugs.  “For such a small word- _if-_ it does so much damage. I’m not going to bend to the hypothetical.”

She nods, her eyes narrowing slightly, as if confirming a suspicion she had had about him, as if confirming that the last piece of innocence had well and truly been stolen from him.

It had.

~*~

He doesn’t want to die.

The realization comes to him after about a month into their journey to Washington, when they’re ambushed by MV’s in a small city in Virginia. They make it out, thankfully, but still. His heart is thudding in his chest and Clarke is checking him for any injuries and he’s just staring at her and.

He doesn’t want to die.

He doesn’t know why that surprises him so much.

~*~

Clarke’s heaven, she later reveals, would be the world as it was before the outbreak. Long hikes in mountains with birds chirping- ‘Birds, don’t you miss it?’-, cold lemonade with her mother and father on the porch during summer evenings and grilled steak cooking on the barbecue. It would be long road trips she never got around to talking and places she would have always loved to visit. It would be paint on her hands, a city outside her window and a canvas beside her.

“It would be love,” She says to him. “Just that feeling when everything’s all right, even though you’re dealing shit. When you can say ‘yeah that’s crap but hey’. That would be heaven. And wherever that is, I’m happy.”

~*~

[(X)](https://youtu.be/hVNT-jDfDro)  


But love, as Bellamy knows, can never be enough.

~*~

The horror for his mother, wasn’t resentment for her children. It was love. It was a raw thing- It ate at her, maimed her, twisted her inside out.

“Love makes monsters of us all,” She told him once, holding him closely, her tears falling softly down her cheeks. She places her hands on the side of his face and stokes the long curls of his hair with her thumb. “Shhh. Listen. I can hear my monster call.”

Bellamy, maybe finally, begins to understand his mother.

~*~

One night, they hunt a deer. It’s not a nice thing to do- to kill a deer- but it has to be done because they’re running low on supplies and they need to eat.

They sit silent that night as the deer cooks over the fire, both of them staring into the flames.

“Promise me,” Clarke says, breaking him out of his thoughts. “That when it’s time for me die, you’ll kill me. No mercy. Let me die.”

He looks into her eyes, at the fire that’s reflected in them.

“Only if you do the same for me.”

She stares at him. “Deal.”

~*~

“Sometimes I feel guilty,” She confesses one day, as they trek along the narrow, leaf covered path. “For leaving them.”

“Why?” He asks, not wanting to push her.

“I don’t know… I guess it’s one of those things. You know. _‘Oh if I was there I could have stopped it. I could have fixed it. I could have saved them.’_ ” She fiddles with her hands, she always does when she’s nervous, he’s noticed. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t live behind four walls all the time.”

He nods his head in understanding. “I get it.”

“But what if people died? What if I could have saved them?”

“Yeah but you saved yourself,” he reasons. “That’s all that really matters.”

She looks at him.

And he looks at her.

“I’ll forgive you,” He offers. “If that’s what you want. I can give that to you. You’re given.”

“Thank you. I forgive you too.”

They’ve reached equal ground now, each chest opened to an extent for the other to take a wander into.

It’s not as scary as Bellamy had thought it would be.

~*~

He thought about that a lot, over the next while. What would his heaven be, if there was one?

His heaven is with Clarke. His heaven is their tug-of-war relationship, the fast jibes and snarky comments they exchanged like kids trading baseball cards, not caring what the stats meant. His heaven is Clarke’s smile, the way it lights up her whole face, and the way it appears every time they came across an animal, as if it gave her hope for the new world.

His heaven is the quick kiss they once shared, Clarke’s hands entwined with his and her breath against his lips. “Do that again when we’re not mortal danger.”

His heaven is sitting across from Clarke at a fire, and promising each other together.

**  
**

His hell is wherever he isn’t with Clarke.

~*~

It's like Clarke opens his chest. Cracks open his ribs just enough to let the wind touch his heart so he knows it's still there.

~*~

~*~

The miles they walked to get to Washington seemed to go pretty quickly in retrospect.

They’re only ten miles from Mount Weather when everything goes to shit.

~*~

“They’re might be grounders stationed here,” Clarke says as they begin the hike up the mountain. She grimaces. “We’ll just have to hope they’ve unlearned the whole _‘shoot first think later’_ thing.”

Bellamy smiles ruefully at her, and shakes his head. This whole apocalypse thing was never going to be easy, anyway. His stomach fills with butterflies at the thoughts of seeing Octavia soon. Would she still hate him? Would she have changed much? ~~Was she even still alive?~~

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, he didn’t see the grounders on the top of the mountain, didn’t see them ready their guns.

Bellamy is only brought out of his own mind when he heard a gunshot, and beside him, Clarke crumples to the ground.

Not a second later, there’s pain ripping through his arm, and he too falls to his knees beside Clarke, where blood is slowly seeping through her cotton shirt, her abdomen covered in red.

“ _No no no no no_ ,” He mumbles, wrenching his hand away from his own wound to put pressure on hers, even though the pain is unbearable. Her skin is gone pale, and she’s looking at him from under her lashes, her breaths growing more unstable and wheezy with every passing second.

“I’m sorry,” She chokes out. “That I couldn’t make good on our promise of forever.

“You will, Clarke,” Bellamy says, leaning his forehead against hers. “You’re stronger than this, you know you are. It’s together or  nothing, right? You and me, against the rest of the world. Don’t leave me to fight this by myself. I couldn’t do it without you. Don’t leave me, Clarke,” He whispers, tears wetting his face. Don’t you die on me.”

“Bellamy,” She croaks, blood trickling from her nose. “Stay. Stay with me, please.”

“I will, Clarke,” He promises, voice thick and breaking.

“Stay till the end,” She whispers.

He nods, his tears rolling down his face and steadily dropping on to her jacket. “And after. And always.”

“I want to go home.”

“So we’ll go there. We’re nearly there, anyway. You can meet Octavia, Clarke. We’ll go back to the Ark and watch Jasper blow shit up or whatever it is you weirdos do. ”

“You’re still a son of a bitch,” She says weakly, a thin smile playing on her lips.

“Asshole.”

“Bastard.”

“Princess-- _Clarke,_ ” He implores. “Please don’t go.”

She doesn’t reply, eyes fluttering closed and breathing growing shallower by the second. A broken sob wracks his body, and he holds her closer, tighter, almost trying to will some of his strength into her.

He curls his body around Clarke, rests his forehead on hers, and waits for the sun to dawn.

~*~

He knows what his heaven is. So he’ll offer her his if.

If he had a heaven, a place to go to when he died, his would have a post office, so he could send letters to Clarke.

The first one would read-

_Princess-_

_May we meet again. We’ll meet again._

__

~*~

“...Lamy... Bell… _Bellamy._...”

He wakes slowly, eyes fluttering open, and blinking groggily at the bright lights above him.

[(X)](https://youtu.be/vOJkRxjlULo)  


Where the hell is he?

“Bellamy.”

His heart skips a beat. He knows that voice. “Octavia?”

He turns his head, and there she is. Different. Changed. But still very much there. There are tears in her eyes, and she gives him a watery smile.

 

“Hey there, big brother.” He missed that voice so much.

“I missed you so much,” He says, throat tightening.

“I missed you too,” She replies, wiping stray tears from her face. It doesn’t last long, though, because her face is contorting, and then suddenly she’s flung her arms around him and sobs into the crook of his neck. “Oh god, Bell,” she weeps. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, O. I love you so much.” His words are muffled against her head, but she must hear because she squeezes him tighter. And he doesn’t care how much it hurts him- he hugs her back just as hard.

~*~

The grounders didn’t torture Octavia, thank god. In fact, technically speaking, she’s one of them now. There’s a more stable treaty between the grounders and ARK now, they work much better together.

“I gave them a run for their money when they tried to capture me,” She grins wickedly. “But they brought me straight to here, and after a day or two asked me if I wanted to join their ranks. I’m still training, but.” She smiles, she seems happy, so Bellamy’s happy, even though he’s not thrilled with the idea of Octavia being a grounder. Or _dating_ one, but that’s a different matter.

On the fifth day, Clarke’s out of quarantine, and he’s finally allowed to see her.

**  
**  
  


“Hey,” He greets as he walks over to her, sitting down on a log by a fire.

“Hey yourself,” She greets, tears welling in her eyes, and he’d be lying if he said he himself didn’t have one or two stray drops escape him as he hugged her in the first time that feels like forever.

They sit side by side each other, like they have so many times, but different.

They watch the fire, and when Clarke whispers “Looks like we made it, huh? Together.”

“No more mortal danger,” He agrees. And then he kisses her. It’s soft and sweet and it promises something more and it’s maybe the most perfect kiss he’s ever had.

After, hands entwined and Clarke’s head resting on his shoulder, they watch the fire burn on. They watch.

And still, they watch.

Together.

[(X)](https://youtu.be/H3g0d6Cgqyg) 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked it!! It'd be great if you could leave a comment and tell me what you think :))


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